This always happens with the new game. I seriously, seriously doubt Netrunner will go full BSG on us and warrant its own thread. We have to "wade" through two pages a day.
What is this I don't even.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Actually the X-wing strategy talk is reminding me of CCG talk. Too much seems decided by the money you put in and the skill at squad (=deck) building. So I'm feeling less of an urge to buy Y-wings, because it may not be my kind of game.
Are you avoiding Netrunner for the same reason? I can't remember what you had to say about it.
Well I think Netrunner, as an LCG, is much more my thing, but some people are still talking about buying multiple cores, which worries me.
I'm mostly avoiding Netrunner because I'm poor.
LCG means "Spend just about as much as you would on a CCG, but instead of randomly rebuying product you don't care as much about to get a few rares, you can rebuy FIXED sets of product you don't care much about to get rares."
Uh ...
I'm in Canada, where you don't get things like Netrunner for $20, but even at full price, 2 core sets (as much as one person would reasonably buy) would come to roughly $80. Each data pack, of which there might be 6 a year, will cost $12-15. So ... I guess getting everything in this first year will cost something like $150?
In contrast, most Magic decks I know of these days cost several hundred dollars to put together, and those only remain tournament-legal for a set period of time before needing to be replaced.
LCGs *could* be cheaper, yes. But I must strongly disagree with them being comparable to CCGs. Especially if you have the capacity to split with friends over cards wanted. >_>
Anyone who's played a fair amount of X-Wing have any comments on whether a Gold Squadron setup would be even remotely feasible?
By Gold Squadron I mean all Y-Wings, not necessarily all Gold Squadron pilots.
I'm not too worried about it being a competitive list, just wondering if I can show up to a casual game, drop some Y-Wings on the table, and have at least a chance of doing decently.
All Y-wings is definitely viable. 2+ Ion Cannons would be a nightmare to deal with. Plus Y-wings are ridiculously durable. It would be a fun list to play.
Last game we played we joked about how broken 2+ Ion Cannons could be. We just imagined Y-wings flying behind every ship, one by one, perpetually ionizing them until they explode and then moving on to the next target.
Wait, an all Y-wing squad is viable? I'd been avoiding this game because i didn't want to pilot the other, inferior ships. I might check it out now.
Y-Wings are interesting beasts. At 3 shields and 5 hull, they can take a lot of punishment, and the 360 turret on the ion cannons is a boon to players who have trouble outflying their opponents. The ion cannon's big advantages are 3 dice to hit with (versus 2 for the main guns) and ionization (forces the enemy ship to do a move 1 straight forward). Its drawbacks are being limited to ranges 1-2 (so the enemy can take long range pot shots at you) and only doing one point of damage per hit, no matter how many symbols you roll.
The best fun you can have with the ion cannon is when you ionize a ship with a stress token. An ionized ship moves only one straight forward and the stress token means no actions (barrel rolls, evades, whatever). If you can keep scoring hits, this amounts to stun locking the target along a predictable course - then just stay out of its way and paste it until it falls apart. Glorious when it works.
The drawbacks for the Y-Wings come in the defense (1 die) and primary armament (2 dice). 1 die defense means TIEs will peck away at you over time and even long range fire will slightly favor the TIEs inflicting damage (2 dice to 2 dice). The 2 dice primary armament will operate at a noticeable disadvantage against TIEs (2d to 3d, 2d to 4d at long range) and even your range 1 fire will only go off at even dice.
Secondary weapons (proton torpedoes) are nice but IMO end up being expensive. They are generally one shot at 4 dice at ranges 2-3 and you need a target lock to launch them.
To do an all Gold pilot squadron, you'd end up with 3 or 4 fighters (54 or 72 points), plus upgrades. Ion cannons will run you 5 apiece, proton torpedoes 4 and then astromechs for the remaining points. So 4 Y-Wings with ion cannons would be 92 and then you could afford proton torps for two of them if you didn't care about astromechs. You could (of course) leave off an ion cannon if you wanted, but you'd better back that up with a lot of confidence in your ability to get shots.
From an Imperial perspective, I'd know such a squadron would take a great deal of killing (32 hits versus 20 for the equivalent in X-Wings), but would (in turn) be much easier to hurt. The key here would not be the force construction, but whether the Imperial player could fly well enough to keep his fire massed on one or two Y-Wings to pull them down and weaken the pack.
I dunno, personally I kinda like hearing about Netrunner and X-wing. My friend has both, so I'm sure I'll play them at some point.
The Netrunner guys are already holding back big time, wanting to wax long on strategies and expansions and 1000-word optimal deck compositions. Just look at them! I think they're turning purple.
I could be wrong, but I doubt that X-Wing can support a thread yet. But once the A-Wing, B-Wing, Slave 1, Falcon, and who knows what else get released, it might be a different story. But it might not be that kind of game, I dunno.
I still prefer my games to be one tidy, finished, package though, when possible.
The definition of "tidy package" might be a bit fuzzy these days. What about Summoner Wars, with tons of extra factions and expansions and even limited deck construction? The consensus seems to be that they have held "power creep" to a minimum. And speaking of that game, even a small company like Plaid Hat really playtested everything pretty exhaustively (especially after the base sets were released). I certainly think it's possible for a bigger company to have a really polished set of expansions, even if they release them every couple of months.
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Custom SpecialI know I am, I'm sure I am,I'm Sounders 'til I die!Registered Userregular
Discount X-Wing expansions are done on Amazon, hope everyone jumped on it while it was still up.
I still prefer my games to be one tidy, finished, package though, when possible.
The definition of "tidy package" might be a bit fuzzy these days. What about Summoner Wars, with tons of extra factions and expansions and even limited deck construction? The consensus seems to be that they have held "power creep" to a minimum. And speaking of that game, even a small company like Plaid Hat really playtested everything pretty exhaustively (especially after the base sets were released). I certainly think it's possible for a bigger company to have a really polished set of expansions, even if they release them every couple of months.
I know I've drifted more and more into desiring my games to be either whole and complete at the outset, or expandable through scenarios. Which is probably a capricious and contradictory set of tastes. I think I've just been burnt out on expansions by and large. There are expansions I've bought for games that I've never had the opportunity to actually play because I can never get a group of people together familiar enough with the base game to warrant expanding it. But I have that completionist mentality. If I buy one expansion I buy them all.
The one place where I don't feel bad about this is my scenario based war games. I have all the expansions for Commands & Colors: Ancients and Napoleonics. I've also bought most of the expansions and battlepacks for Combat Commander: Europe. But I can justify this to myself by saying I will get to all those scenarios one day. And who knows, maybe I will. Those are pretty much the war games I've settled on. Managed to play through the base game and the first expansion pack for Ancients in its entirety. And I just recently started on Napoleonics, which only has 15 missions.
I've also found my taste more drawn to scenario based games anyhow. Every time you sit down you can try something completely new, but you don't have to learn any new rules! It's fantastic.
So, I have an itch to purchase a new game that I probably won't play and nothing is really popping out at me as something I want (but it itches so bad!!) so I need some recommendations.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
Also, I used to love Dominion (base) but I've gotten too good at it, relative to my friends, to really enjoy it anymore. Will any of the expansions breathe some new life into it and force some strategy diversification?
So, I have an itch to purchase a new game that I probably won't play and nothing is really popping out at me as something I want (but it itches so bad!!) so I need some recommendations.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
Thoughts?
Caylus has some of the worker placement stuff of Agricola or Puerto Rico. Dominant Species is excellent and fits in there too.
Also, I used to love Dominion (base) but I've gotten too good at it, relative to my friends, to really enjoy it anymore. Will any of the expansions breathe some new life into it and force some strategy diversification?
You can try puzzle strike, which is pretty much dominion with starting characters.
I still prefer my games to be one tidy, finished, package though, when possible.
The definition of "tidy package" might be a bit fuzzy these days. What about Summoner Wars, with tons of extra factions and expansions and even limited deck construction? The consensus seems to be that they have held "power creep" to a minimum. And speaking of that game, even a small company like Plaid Hat really playtested everything pretty exhaustively (especially after the base sets were released). I certainly think it's possible for a bigger company to have a really polished set of expansions, even if they release them every couple of months.
I know I've drifted more and more into desiring my games to be either whole and complete at the outset, or expandable through scenarios. Which is probably a capricious and contradictory set of tastes. I think I've just been burnt out on expansions by and large. There are expansions I've bought for games that I've never had the opportunity to actually play because I can never get a group of people together familiar enough with the base game to warrant expanding it. But I have that completionist mentality. If I buy one expansion I buy them all.
The one place where I don't feel bad about this is my scenario based war games. I have all the expansions for Commands & Colors: Ancients and Napoleonics. I've also bought most of the expansions and battlepacks for Combat Commander: Europe. But I can justify this to myself by saying I will get to all those scenarios one day. And who knows, maybe I will. Those are pretty much the war games I've settled on. Managed to play through the base game and the first expansion pack for Ancients in its entirety. And I just recently started on Napoleonics, which only has 15 missions.
I've also found my taste more drawn to scenario based games anyhow. Every time you sit down you can try something completely new, but you don't have to learn any new rules! It's fantastic.
I certainly understand the desire to get C&C:A expansions. Can't wait for those to come out next year. But on the topic of "scenarios", that's a grey area too. Is getting another map for Steam a "scenario"? It's pretty close. And where does the Summoner Wars model fit in there, where you buy a complete faction that fits into the existing rules (unless you count the abilities on the cards new rules)?
Shoot, you could argue that Netrunner is the same way, because you can create a unique deck and try it out every time. It should be noted, though, that I don't know whether I would really enjoy that aspect of Netrunner. But it does give even the base game a lot of variety.
But perhaps you are thinking of something a bit more "story-oriented" when you describe a scenario. And I totally get that. I love just the idea of bringing elephants across the Alps into the Italian plains, for example. The buzz over Mice and Mystics shows that the idea has legs, so to speak.
So, I have an itch to purchase a new game that I probably won't play and nothing is really popping out at me as something I want (but it itches so bad!!) so I need some recommendations.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
Thoughts?
I see a lot of heavy eurogames in that list. What about Archipelago, a new game that has gotten some good ink? If you wanted a lighter game that was still euro-centered, what about Lords of Waterdeep? That one seems to have good results with new gamers, too. If you wanted a longer, heavier euro, the aforementioned Dominant Species is a great suggestion. But it might be hard to get your friends to play, if 7 Wonders is more their speed.
A lot is added to Dominion by the expansions. Some good ones are Seaside (adds stuff that affects your next turn), Intrigue (a lot more interaction between players), and Prosperity (higher-value money and VP cards). Adding any of those will really mix up the strategies.
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I think it's really well-designed; Sauron now really has to make some strategic decisions at the beginning of the game about which minions he's going to get out and which sieges he wants to start with, and the good guys also have a little bit more flexibility in getting some nations to At War early.
Plus the dice are incredibly shiny and you get to play with the Balrog.
So, I have an itch to purchase a new game that I probably won't play and nothing is really popping out at me as something I want (but it itches so bad!!) so I need some recommendations.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
Thoughts?
Goa is a fantastic game along those lines as well. A very good Euro with a strong auction mechanic, and a economic/engine building mechanic as well.
I still prefer my games to be one tidy, finished, package though, when possible.
The definition of "tidy package" might be a bit fuzzy these days. What about Summoner Wars, with tons of extra factions and expansions and even limited deck construction? The consensus seems to be that they have held "power creep" to a minimum. And speaking of that game, even a small company like Plaid Hat really playtested everything pretty exhaustively (especially after the base sets were released). I certainly think it's possible for a bigger company to have a really polished set of expansions, even if they release them every couple of months.
I know I've drifted more and more into desiring my games to be either whole and complete at the outset, or expandable through scenarios. Which is probably a capricious and contradictory set of tastes. I think I've just been burnt out on expansions by and large. There are expansions I've bought for games that I've never had the opportunity to actually play because I can never get a group of people together familiar enough with the base game to warrant expanding it. But I have that completionist mentality. If I buy one expansion I buy them all.
The one place where I don't feel bad about this is my scenario based war games. I have all the expansions for Commands & Colors: Ancients and Napoleonics. I've also bought most of the expansions and battlepacks for Combat Commander: Europe. But I can justify this to myself by saying I will get to all those scenarios one day. And who knows, maybe I will. Those are pretty much the war games I've settled on. Managed to play through the base game and the first expansion pack for Ancients in its entirety. And I just recently started on Napoleonics, which only has 15 missions.
I've also found my taste more drawn to scenario based games anyhow. Every time you sit down you can try something completely new, but you don't have to learn any new rules! It's fantastic.
I certainly understand the desire to get C&C:A expansions. Can't wait for those to come out next year. But on the topic of "scenarios", that's a grey area too. Is getting another map for Steam a "scenario"? It's pretty close. And where does the Summoner Wars model fit in there, where you buy a complete faction that fits into the existing rules (unless you count the abilities on the cards new rules)?
Shoot, you could argue that Netrunner is the same way, because you can create a unique deck and try it out every time. It should be noted, though, that I don't know whether I would really enjoy that aspect of Netrunner. But it does give even the base game a lot of variety.
But perhaps you are thinking of something a bit more "story-oriented" when you describe a scenario. And I totally get that. I love just the idea of bringing elephants across the Alps into the Italian plains, for example. The buzz over Mice and Mystics shows that the idea has legs, so to speak.
For me the dividing line is the effort on my part. For games like Commands & Colors, new scenarios involve very little effort on my part. The decision about which one to play is effortless as well. We just play the next one in the series! Done! Games with random setups have a good aspect of this too. We don't agonize over which kingdom cards to use in Dominion. The setup is random.
But you play a game with a shit ton of modular expansions, like Alhambra, or Carcassonne, and you've gotta sit there and argue and discuss which expansions do you want to play with today. You have a game like Summoner Wars or Yomi or whatever where you have 20 different factions, and you have to figure out which one you want to play that day. You spent all this money on all these factions? Are you really getting your money's worth out of all of them?
And any deck building game is the worst in this regard. I simply do not get to play those games often enough to justify the time investment of having to create my own deck, and often my opponents deck as well, and then explaining to them how to play it. Just no good.
But like I said, my criteria is likely contradictory or capricious. I like expansions that don't make figuring out what you want to play with this time overly complicated. The set scenarios in tactical level wargames are good for that. And the random setup in most of Donald X's games are also good at that, although to a lesser extent when you have a lot of expansions and you want to narrow it down to two or three sets of kingdom cards to randomize this time. But by the time you get down to LCG/CCG or miniature games, the time spent preparing to time spent playing ratio goes all sorts of inverted to where I like it.
Looks like I'm going to Germany this coming year. Germans love board games, I love board games, anyone have any ideas of stuff to check out over there? If I remember correctly, Germany is also big into games workshop stuff, so ill check out some of that for sure.
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I only play the Lord of the Rings LCG because we play it every Wednesday at the FLGS. If I wasn't going to play it that often I definitely wouldn't have bought it in the first place.
Otherwise my tastes in expansions echo many of you, I stick to C&C, Combat Commander, and games I play a lot - which is basically Core Worlds, Space Empires (for another solo campaign mostly), and I bought the Treasure Chest for Notre Dame and Puerto Rico.
Having done a reality check, I have no interest in X-Wing. That's right, free of temptation. I don't think I'll get it on the table and even then, at least in Canada bucks, it's pricey for the value I perceive in it.
I've no interests in CCGs and, having invested so heavily in LOTR, another LCG would be irresponsible to get into.
I also think that after 2 years of frenzied buying, I'm in a good spot for my collection and I don't really need anything else and my want list is small enough that I don't feel compelled to get everything on it.
Going to play Here I Stand on Saturday. It'll just be a few intro turns to get everyone into it and then we'll try a full game in a few months. We're changing the hours of the bi-monthly epic game group meeting to start at noon so we can actually finish things comfortably with breaks. It's going to make it a little harder to get a full compliment of players out but we all agree we'd rather be able to finish the things we start.
Bear is Driving on
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jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
For me the dividing line is the effort on my part. For games like Commands & Colors, new scenarios involve very little effort on my part. The decision about which one to play is effortless as well. We just play the next one in the series! Done! Games with random setups have a good aspect of this too. We don't agonize over which kingdom cards to use in Dominion. The setup is random.
But you play a game with a shit ton of modular expansions, like Alhambra, or Carcassonne, and you've gotta sit there and argue and discuss which expansions do you want to play with today. You have a game like Summoner Wars or Yomi or whatever where you have 20 different factions, and you have to figure out which one you want to play that day. You spent all this money on all these factions? Are you really getting your money's worth out of all of them?
And any deck building game is the worst in this regard. I simply do not get to play those games often enough to justify the time investment of having to create my own deck, and often my opponents deck as well, and then explaining to them how to play it. Just no good.
I think I pretty much agree with you, though you draw the line to exclude Summoner Wars and Yomi, and I love both of those games so much for their variety of play. But I think I'm with you concerning "deck construction" (is that a better term now that "deck-building" is an in-game mechanic?).
On the other hand, my very skepticism about "deck construction" games makes me want to try Netrunner all the more. If I don't like THAT game, then I can pretty much exclude the genre. And the base set is cheap enough for me to feel okay about trying it out.
But you mentioned that you have a completionist mentality, so I totally get that you would be hesitant to jump into any hole that has no bottom. I have a buddy who is the same way: he couldn't just buy Carcassonne, he had to get the Big Box; he couldn't just buy Dominion, he had to buy EVERY EXPANSION.
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Looks like I'm going to Germany this coming year. Germans love board games, I love board games, anyone have any ideas of stuff to check out over there? If I remember correctly, Germany is also big into games workshop stuff, so ill check out some of that for sure.
Germany may be the land of the Euro, but my experience is that it is pretty difficult to find exciting stuff other than the big expo's. And keep in mind that the prices are pretty high, so the most interesting stuff is the games that you can only get in Germany and is easy translatable. I have bought a few of the mini expansions for Carcassonne for example.
So, I have an itch to purchase a new game that I probably won't play and nothing is really popping out at me as something I want (but it itches so bad!!) so I need some recommendations.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
I'm trying to decide if I want to pay $100 for a copy of Fury of Dracula for my game group or if I should wait and see when the reprint comes out - FFG has it listed under upcoming releases, but no date. I haven't played the game but I hear great things about it and think my group would really enjoy it. Thoughts?
Oh yeah, I backed Thunder Alley. It's not my usual thing. A part of it is my unadultered love of GMT Games. A part of it is wanting to encourage them to use Kickstarter more for their non-wargame titles that don't get much love on the P500 list. And while the theme turned me off, after watching Tom Vasel's video and the designers two videos, I'm actually convinced it's good. Like seriously good. I mean GMT wanting to publish it should have been enough of a hint as to its goodness.
Too bad it probably won't actually get funded. Kicktraq is guessing it'll hit only 60% of its funding request.
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jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
I'm trying to decide if I want to pay $100 for a copy of Fury of Dracula for my game group or if I should wait and see when the reprint comes out - FFG has it listed under upcoming releases, but no date. I haven't played the game but I hear great things about it and think my group would really enjoy it. Thoughts?
Holy shit, Fury of Dracula is $100? I got it in a trade for Talisman not that long ago. :P Haven't even played it.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
So, I have an itch to purchase a new game that I probably won't play and nothing is really popping out at me as something I want (but it itches so bad!!) so I need some recommendations.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
Thoughts?
There is a relatively new game from the Le Havre / Agricola guy called Ora & Labora which is pretty darn good. It's only downside is there are fewer ways to directly stab opponents than in Agricola or Le Havre.
So, I have an itch to purchase a new game that I probably won't play and nothing is really popping out at me as something I want (but it itches so bad!!) so I need some recommendations.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
Thoughts?
Caylus has some of the worker placement stuff of Agricola or Puerto Rico. Dominant Species is excellent and fits in there too.
I'm trying to decide if I want to pay $100 for a copy of Fury of Dracula for my game group or if I should wait and see when the reprint comes out - FFG has it listed under upcoming releases, but no date. I haven't played the game but I hear great things about it and think my group would really enjoy it. Thoughts?
I like Fury in theory, but in practice it's just too damned long and ultimately too reliant on the dice and other random draws. Fortunately Letters from Whitechapel does the hidden movement thing in a nice, streamlined way that has no randomness. (Unfortunately it, too, is in need of a reprint.)
I'm trying to decide if I want to pay $100 for a copy of Fury of Dracula for my game group or if I should wait and see when the reprint comes out - FFG has it listed under upcoming releases, but no date. I haven't played the game but I hear great things about it and think my group would really enjoy it. Thoughts?
I like Fury in theory, but in practice it's just too damned long and ultimately too reliant on the dice and other random draws. Fortunately Letters from Whitechapel does the hidden movement thing in a nice, streamlined way that has no randomness. (Unfortunately it, too, is in need of a reprint.)
The reprint has at least been announced / confirmed for Whitechapel though. I agree that it's a really great game.
I finished school in the summer of 2010. At that time I had Puerto Rico, BSG, Game of Thrones and Diplomacy (and some others I won't admit to owning). The only reason I didn't have Settlers is because basically everyone I knew already did so why bother. But otherwise I couldn't afford anything else, didn't really know of anything else, or didn't have the time.
THEN I started working and oh hey money is pretty fun to spend and I went and bought a couple things when I was in the city.
AND THEN a game store opened up directly across the street from the office and things got out of control for a bit. It's a town of 7000, very small for a store like that, I thought maybe some deity was fucking with me.
So not even 2 years later I have over 50 games. It could definitely be worse and I still have a few more than I will likely play with any regularity or even once a year but I'm learning to practice restraint. This week I've only purchased Innovation and only then because I wanted to pad out an order that included some stuff for G&T Secret Santa.
Oh yeah, I backed Thunder Alley. It's not my usual thing. A part of it is my unadultered love of GMT Games.
You're a better GMT man than me. I'm having a really hard time getting past the theme. It would also be my first kickstarter and I'm reluctant to go down that hole. If it's really close to funding just before it's supposed to finish I will probably help out because enough people with good opinions are promoting the shit out of this thing but mannnnnn NASCAR?
Oh yeah, I backed Thunder Alley. It's not my usual thing. A part of it is my unadultered love of GMT Games.
You're a better GMT man than me. I'm having a really hard time getting past the theme. It would also be my first kickstarter and I'm reluctant to go down that hole. If it's really close to funding just before it's supposed to finish I will probably help out because enough people with good opinions are promoting the shit out of this thing but mannnnnn NASCAR?
What did it for me was reading the rules and watching the designers gameplay video. The depth of play is definitely there. Plus I really am excited about the tactics involved in the hand management involved with your cards, and the team management of balancing your car's position and wear. The Nascar theme couldn't be a bigger turn off, but the gameplay looks like it will more than make up for it.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I want to back Thunder Alley, but I'm in a financial-saving mode. I don't mind the theme - I like cars well enough (Love cars, hate NASCAR, meet half way), and I really like what I know of the game, but I just can't commit the money. Even then, I more want to back it to give them my support than for the game. At this point, there are very few games I plan to try and pick up in the foreseeable future. I'm glad one of them is A Distant Plane and I have until next Summer to commit to that.
Much like Bear, in the last 2 years I've acquired a fair share of games (technically closer to 100 than 50, but I participated in a lot of BGG trading to try a bunch of things out and keep things I wasn't interested in moving). I'm sitting at just about 50, but still looking to downsize. Sadly, I'm closer to a collector given the number of those games I don't have occasions to play. But some day, when I have a nice table and space, Indonesia and Antiquity will have their days ... And High Frontier will be more than a chance novelty ...
*continues to dream*
jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
edited December 2012
Looking back over my internet orders, looks like I got started in June of last year. I don't think I've ever bought anything in a b&m store, so the term "FLGS" is foreign to me. My current collection is about 37 (two weeks ago, before BGG con, it must have been about 30), but I've been pretty aggressive at getting rid of stuff. However, as with all my passions, I research WAY more than I actually buy, which explains why the OP is so long.
If you looked at my collection, you would see a ton of 45-90 minute, light-medium weight games. Ones with a lot of replayability. Not too many brand-new games. A wide variety of mechanics and player count. And then a few longer "specialty" games like Earth Reborn and Tales of the Arabian Nights.
Speaking of the OP, I probably need to update it. Need to get a couple of thread-recommended games on there, like Eclipse, Lords of Waterdeep, Netrunner, and X-Wing.
EDIT: Geez, I have posted a lot in the last few days.
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I just got Waterdeep and it's pretty dope. The packaging, the components, the price, the game itself, the instructions...it all fits together quite well.
Also, I used to love Dominion (base) but I've gotten too good at it, relative to my friends, to really enjoy it anymore. Will any of the expansions breathe some new life into it and force some strategy diversification?
I would go either for a newer Euro: Village, Vanuatu, Archipelago.
Or a newer deckbuilder: Thunderstone Advance, Marvel Legendary, Core Worlds.
Or something lighter for your mates: Lords of Waterdeep, Takenoko, Bang, Saboteur.
So, I have an itch to purchase a new game that I probably won't play and nothing is really popping out at me as something I want (but it itches so bad!!) so I need some recommendations.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
Thoughts?
Goa is a fantastic game along those lines as well. A very good Euro with a strong auction mechanic, and a economic/engine building mechanic as well.
I still prefer my games to be one tidy, finished, package though, when possible.
The definition of "tidy package" might be a bit fuzzy these days. What about Summoner Wars, with tons of extra factions and expansions and even limited deck construction? The consensus seems to be that they have held "power creep" to a minimum. And speaking of that game, even a small company like Plaid Hat really playtested everything pretty exhaustively (especially after the base sets were released). I certainly think it's possible for a bigger company to have a really polished set of expansions, even if they release them every couple of months.
I know I've drifted more and more into desiring my games to be either whole and complete at the outset, or expandable through scenarios. Which is probably a capricious and contradictory set of tastes. I think I've just been burnt out on expansions by and large. There are expansions I've bought for games that I've never had the opportunity to actually play because I can never get a group of people together familiar enough with the base game to warrant expanding it. But I have that completionist mentality. If I buy one expansion I buy them all.
The one place where I don't feel bad about this is my scenario based war games. I have all the expansions for Commands & Colors: Ancients and Napoleonics. I've also bought most of the expansions and battlepacks for Combat Commander: Europe. But I can justify this to myself by saying I will get to all those scenarios one day. And who knows, maybe I will. Those are pretty much the war games I've settled on. Managed to play through the base game and the first expansion pack for Ancients in its entirety. And I just recently started on Napoleonics, which only has 15 missions.
I've also found my taste more drawn to scenario based games anyhow. Every time you sit down you can try something completely new, but you don't have to learn any new rules! It's fantastic.
I certainly understand the desire to get C&C:A expansions. Can't wait for those to come out next year. But on the topic of "scenarios", that's a grey area too. Is getting another map for Steam a "scenario"? It's pretty close. And where does the Summoner Wars model fit in there, where you buy a complete faction that fits into the existing rules (unless you count the abilities on the cards new rules)?
Shoot, you could argue that Netrunner is the same way, because you can create a unique deck and try it out every time. It should be noted, though, that I don't know whether I would really enjoy that aspect of Netrunner. But it does give even the base game a lot of variety.
But perhaps you are thinking of something a bit more "story-oriented" when you describe a scenario. And I totally get that. I love just the idea of bringing elephants across the Alps into the Italian plains, for example. The buzz over Mice and Mystics shows that the idea has legs, so to speak.
For me the dividing line is the effort on my part. For games like Commands & Colors, new scenarios involve very little effort on my part. The decision about which one to play is effortless as well. We just play the next one in the series! Done! Games with random setups have a good aspect of this too. We don't agonize over which kingdom cards to use in Dominion. The setup is random.
But you play a game with a shit ton of modular expansions, like Alhambra, or Carcassonne, and you've gotta sit there and argue and discuss which expansions do you want to play with today. You have a game like Summoner Wars or Yomi or whatever where you have 20 different factions, and you have to figure out which one you want to play that day. You spent all this money on all these factions? Are you really getting your money's worth out of all of them?
And any deck building game is the worst in this regard. I simply do not get to play those games often enough to justify the time investment of having to create my own deck, and often my opponents deck as well, and then explaining to them how to play it. Just no good.
But like I said, my criteria is likely contradictory or capricious. I like expansions that don't make figuring out what you want to play with this time overly complicated. The set scenarios in tactical level wargames are good for that. And the random setup in most of Donald X's games are also good at that, although to a lesser extent when you have a lot of expansions and you want to narrow it down to two or three sets of kingdom cards to randomize this time. But by the time you get down to LCG/CCG or miniature games, the time spent preparing to time spent playing ratio goes all sorts of inverted to where I like it.
I just want to point out that a "Deck Building Game" isn't as you described. Games where you build decks before you play are different than a "Deck Building Game." You're thinking of Living Card Games like Netrunner and Lord of the Rings, or Trading Card Games like Magic:tG or Yugioh. A "Deck Building Game" is something like Dominion where the gameplay itself is starting with a small deck and building it up as you play.
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Uh ...
I'm in Canada, where you don't get things like Netrunner for $20, but even at full price, 2 core sets (as much as one person would reasonably buy) would come to roughly $80. Each data pack, of which there might be 6 a year, will cost $12-15. So ... I guess getting everything in this first year will cost something like $150?
In contrast, most Magic decks I know of these days cost several hundred dollars to put together, and those only remain tournament-legal for a set period of time before needing to be replaced.
LCGs *could* be cheaper, yes. But I must strongly disagree with them being comparable to CCGs. Especially if you have the capacity to split with friends over cards wanted. >_>
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Wait, an all Y-wing squad is viable? I'd been avoiding this game because i didn't want to pilot the other, inferior ships. I might check it out now.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
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The best fun you can have with the ion cannon is when you ionize a ship with a stress token. An ionized ship moves only one straight forward and the stress token means no actions (barrel rolls, evades, whatever). If you can keep scoring hits, this amounts to stun locking the target along a predictable course - then just stay out of its way and paste it until it falls apart. Glorious when it works.
The drawbacks for the Y-Wings come in the defense (1 die) and primary armament (2 dice). 1 die defense means TIEs will peck away at you over time and even long range fire will slightly favor the TIEs inflicting damage (2 dice to 2 dice). The 2 dice primary armament will operate at a noticeable disadvantage against TIEs (2d to 3d, 2d to 4d at long range) and even your range 1 fire will only go off at even dice.
Secondary weapons (proton torpedoes) are nice but IMO end up being expensive. They are generally one shot at 4 dice at ranges 2-3 and you need a target lock to launch them.
To do an all Gold pilot squadron, you'd end up with 3 or 4 fighters (54 or 72 points), plus upgrades. Ion cannons will run you 5 apiece, proton torpedoes 4 and then astromechs for the remaining points. So 4 Y-Wings with ion cannons would be 92 and then you could afford proton torps for two of them if you didn't care about astromechs. You could (of course) leave off an ion cannon if you wanted, but you'd better back that up with a lot of confidence in your ability to get shots.
From an Imperial perspective, I'd know such a squadron would take a great deal of killing (32 hits versus 20 for the equivalent in X-Wings), but would (in turn) be much easier to hurt. The key here would not be the force construction, but whether the Imperial player could fly well enough to keep his fire massed on one or two Y-Wings to pull them down and weaken the pack.
The Netrunner guys are already holding back big time, wanting to wax long on strategies and expansions and 1000-word optimal deck compositions. Just look at them! I think they're turning purple.
I could be wrong, but I doubt that X-Wing can support a thread yet. But once the A-Wing, B-Wing, Slave 1, Falcon, and who knows what else get released, it might be a different story. But it might not be that kind of game, I dunno.
The definition of "tidy package" might be a bit fuzzy these days. What about Summoner Wars, with tons of extra factions and expansions and even limited deck construction? The consensus seems to be that they have held "power creep" to a minimum. And speaking of that game, even a small company like Plaid Hat really playtested everything pretty exhaustively (especially after the base sets were released). I certainly think it's possible for a bigger company to have a really polished set of expansions, even if they release them every couple of months.
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I know I've drifted more and more into desiring my games to be either whole and complete at the outset, or expandable through scenarios. Which is probably a capricious and contradictory set of tastes. I think I've just been burnt out on expansions by and large. There are expansions I've bought for games that I've never had the opportunity to actually play because I can never get a group of people together familiar enough with the base game to warrant expanding it. But I have that completionist mentality. If I buy one expansion I buy them all.
The one place where I don't feel bad about this is my scenario based war games. I have all the expansions for Commands & Colors: Ancients and Napoleonics. I've also bought most of the expansions and battlepacks for Combat Commander: Europe. But I can justify this to myself by saying I will get to all those scenarios one day. And who knows, maybe I will. Those are pretty much the war games I've settled on. Managed to play through the base game and the first expansion pack for Ancients in its entirety. And I just recently started on Napoleonics, which only has 15 missions.
I've also found my taste more drawn to scenario based games anyhow. Every time you sit down you can try something completely new, but you don't have to learn any new rules! It's fantastic.
Of the games I own, I love: Agricola, Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Steam, TtA, 1960: Making of the President
Games my friends love, so probably worth noting something in this vein too: Bohnanza, Catan, 7 Wonders
Thoughts?
Caylus has some of the worker placement stuff of Agricola or Puerto Rico. Dominant Species is excellent and fits in there too.
You can try puzzle strike, which is pretty much dominion with starting characters.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
I certainly understand the desire to get C&C:A expansions. Can't wait for those to come out next year. But on the topic of "scenarios", that's a grey area too. Is getting another map for Steam a "scenario"? It's pretty close. And where does the Summoner Wars model fit in there, where you buy a complete faction that fits into the existing rules (unless you count the abilities on the cards new rules)?
Shoot, you could argue that Netrunner is the same way, because you can create a unique deck and try it out every time. It should be noted, though, that I don't know whether I would really enjoy that aspect of Netrunner. But it does give even the base game a lot of variety.
But perhaps you are thinking of something a bit more "story-oriented" when you describe a scenario. And I totally get that. I love just the idea of bringing elephants across the Alps into the Italian plains, for example. The buzz over Mice and Mystics shows that the idea has legs, so to speak.
EDIT:
I see a lot of heavy eurogames in that list. What about Archipelago, a new game that has gotten some good ink? If you wanted a lighter game that was still euro-centered, what about Lords of Waterdeep? That one seems to have good results with new gamers, too. If you wanted a longer, heavier euro, the aforementioned Dominant Species is a great suggestion. But it might be hard to get your friends to play, if 7 Wonders is more their speed.
A lot is added to Dominion by the expansions. Some good ones are Seaside (adds stuff that affects your next turn), Intrigue (a lot more interaction between players), and Prosperity (higher-value money and VP cards). Adding any of those will really mix up the strategies.
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I think it's really well-designed; Sauron now really has to make some strategic decisions at the beginning of the game about which minions he's going to get out and which sieges he wants to start with, and the good guys also have a little bit more flexibility in getting some nations to At War early.
Plus the dice are incredibly shiny and you get to play with the Balrog.
Goa is a fantastic game along those lines as well. A very good Euro with a strong auction mechanic, and a economic/engine building mechanic as well.
For me the dividing line is the effort on my part. For games like Commands & Colors, new scenarios involve very little effort on my part. The decision about which one to play is effortless as well. We just play the next one in the series! Done! Games with random setups have a good aspect of this too. We don't agonize over which kingdom cards to use in Dominion. The setup is random.
But you play a game with a shit ton of modular expansions, like Alhambra, or Carcassonne, and you've gotta sit there and argue and discuss which expansions do you want to play with today. You have a game like Summoner Wars or Yomi or whatever where you have 20 different factions, and you have to figure out which one you want to play that day. You spent all this money on all these factions? Are you really getting your money's worth out of all of them?
And any deck building game is the worst in this regard. I simply do not get to play those games often enough to justify the time investment of having to create my own deck, and often my opponents deck as well, and then explaining to them how to play it. Just no good.
But like I said, my criteria is likely contradictory or capricious. I like expansions that don't make figuring out what you want to play with this time overly complicated. The set scenarios in tactical level wargames are good for that. And the random setup in most of Donald X's games are also good at that, although to a lesser extent when you have a lot of expansions and you want to narrow it down to two or three sets of kingdom cards to randomize this time. But by the time you get down to LCG/CCG or miniature games, the time spent preparing to time spent playing ratio goes all sorts of inverted to where I like it.
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light
Otherwise my tastes in expansions echo many of you, I stick to C&C, Combat Commander, and games I play a lot - which is basically Core Worlds, Space Empires (for another solo campaign mostly), and I bought the Treasure Chest for Notre Dame and Puerto Rico.
Having done a reality check, I have no interest in X-Wing. That's right, free of temptation. I don't think I'll get it on the table and even then, at least in Canada bucks, it's pricey for the value I perceive in it.
I've no interests in CCGs and, having invested so heavily in LOTR, another LCG would be irresponsible to get into.
I also think that after 2 years of frenzied buying, I'm in a good spot for my collection and I don't really need anything else and my want list is small enough that I don't feel compelled to get everything on it.
Going to play Here I Stand on Saturday. It'll just be a few intro turns to get everyone into it and then we'll try a full game in a few months. We're changing the hours of the bi-monthly epic game group meeting to start at noon so we can actually finish things comfortably with breaks. It's going to make it a little harder to get a full compliment of players out but we all agree we'd rather be able to finish the things we start.
I think I pretty much agree with you, though you draw the line to exclude Summoner Wars and Yomi, and I love both of those games so much for their variety of play. But I think I'm with you concerning "deck construction" (is that a better term now that "deck-building" is an in-game mechanic?).
On the other hand, my very skepticism about "deck construction" games makes me want to try Netrunner all the more. If I don't like THAT game, then I can pretty much exclude the genre. And the base set is cheap enough for me to feel okay about trying it out.
But you mentioned that you have a completionist mentality, so I totally get that you would be hesitant to jump into any hole that has no bottom. I have a buddy who is the same way: he couldn't just buy Carcassonne, he had to get the Big Box; he couldn't just buy Dominion, he had to buy EVERY EXPANSION.
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Germany may be the land of the Euro, but my experience is that it is pretty difficult to find exciting stuff other than the big expo's. And keep in mind that the prices are pretty high, so the most interesting stuff is the games that you can only get in Germany and is easy translatable. I have bought a few of the mini expansions for Carcassonne for example.
Carcassonne?
Too bad it probably won't actually get funded. Kicktraq is guessing it'll hit only 60% of its funding request.
I hear ya.
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Holy shit, Fury of Dracula is $100? I got it in a trade for Talisman not that long ago. :P Haven't even played it.
There is a relatively new game from the Le Havre / Agricola guy called Ora & Labora which is pretty darn good. It's only downside is there are fewer ways to directly stab opponents than in Agricola or Le Havre.
Caylus is really good yeah.
I like Fury in theory, but in practice it's just too damned long and ultimately too reliant on the dice and other random draws. Fortunately Letters from Whitechapel does the hidden movement thing in a nice, streamlined way that has no randomness. (Unfortunately it, too, is in need of a reprint.)
The reprint has at least been announced / confirmed for Whitechapel though. I agree that it's a really great game.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I finished school in the summer of 2010. At that time I had Puerto Rico, BSG, Game of Thrones and Diplomacy (and some others I won't admit to owning). The only reason I didn't have Settlers is because basically everyone I knew already did so why bother. But otherwise I couldn't afford anything else, didn't really know of anything else, or didn't have the time.
THEN I started working and oh hey money is pretty fun to spend and I went and bought a couple things when I was in the city.
AND THEN a game store opened up directly across the street from the office and things got out of control for a bit. It's a town of 7000, very small for a store like that, I thought maybe some deity was fucking with me.
So not even 2 years later I have over 50 games. It could definitely be worse and I still have a few more than I will likely play with any regularity or even once a year but I'm learning to practice restraint. This week I've only purchased Innovation and only then because I wanted to pad out an order that included some stuff for G&T Secret Santa.
You're a better GMT man than me. I'm having a really hard time getting past the theme. It would also be my first kickstarter and I'm reluctant to go down that hole. If it's really close to funding just before it's supposed to finish I will probably help out because enough people with good opinions are promoting the shit out of this thing but mannnnnn NASCAR?
What did it for me was reading the rules and watching the designers gameplay video. The depth of play is definitely there. Plus I really am excited about the tactics involved in the hand management involved with your cards, and the team management of balancing your car's position and wear. The Nascar theme couldn't be a bigger turn off, but the gameplay looks like it will more than make up for it.
Much like Bear, in the last 2 years I've acquired a fair share of games (technically closer to 100 than 50, but I participated in a lot of BGG trading to try a bunch of things out and keep things I wasn't interested in moving). I'm sitting at just about 50, but still looking to downsize. Sadly, I'm closer to a collector given the number of those games I don't have occasions to play. But some day, when I have a nice table and space, Indonesia and Antiquity will have their days ... And High Frontier will be more than a chance novelty ...
*continues to dream*
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
If you looked at my collection, you would see a ton of 45-90 minute, light-medium weight games. Ones with a lot of replayability. Not too many brand-new games. A wide variety of mechanics and player count. And then a few longer "specialty" games like Earth Reborn and Tales of the Arabian Nights.
Speaking of the OP, I probably need to update it. Need to get a couple of thread-recommended games on there, like Eclipse, Lords of Waterdeep, Netrunner, and X-Wing.
EDIT: Geez, I have posted a lot in the last few days.
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I would go either for a newer Euro: Village, Vanuatu, Archipelago.
Or a newer deckbuilder: Thunderstone Advance, Marvel Legendary, Core Worlds.
Or something lighter for your mates: Lords of Waterdeep, Takenoko, Bang, Saboteur.
I just want to point out that a "Deck Building Game" isn't as you described. Games where you build decks before you play are different than a "Deck Building Game." You're thinking of Living Card Games like Netrunner and Lord of the Rings, or Trading Card Games like Magic:tG or Yugioh. A "Deck Building Game" is something like Dominion where the gameplay itself is starting with a small deck and building it up as you play.